Fire Safety for Restaurants, Fast Food & Takeaway Shops
If you run a restaurant, fast food outlet or takeaway shop then this artlcle will pinpoint some key advice to ensure that your business is up to date with all fire safety regulations. This advice will help you to protect your business from the effects of a fire and also ensure that you are knowledgeable about your legal responsibilities.
Protect your premises
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 you are responsible for taking the correct steps to protect those using your premises from the risk of fire. This means you are required to have a ‘responsible person’ to carry fire risk assessments, so they are able to identify possible risks and remove these. Along with this, the ‘responsible person’ should ensure that those within the premises can be easily altered and can exit the building without risk if a fire were to take place.
Carrying out a fire risk assessment
What is a fire risk assessment? It’s a thorough run-through of your premises, it considers the risk of a fire starting and also what measures you should have in place to prevent this. There are 5 steps of carrying out this assessment:
Step 1 - Identify people at risk
Step 2 - Identify fire hazards
Step 3 - Evaluate the risk
Step 4 - Record your findings
Step 5 - Review and revise
If you haven’t had a fire risk assessment carried out on your premises it’s vital that you do and the team here at Fire Stoppers are here to help.
Cleaning & Maintenance
Within a restaurant, fast food or takeaway environment there are fire risks linked with not having the extraction ducts cleaned or maintained. Not doing so can lead to a build-up of flammable fats, grease and dust which will stop the ventilation systems from working effectively and could contribute to a fast spread of fire. Insurance companies require you to keep up with the cleaning and maintenance of your extraction ducts as an element of your building insurance policy and your cover could be invalid if you do not keep up with this.
Reduce the dangers
There are many ways a business can reduce the dangers of a fire getting out of control or cursing a large amount of harm. For example:
- Ensure your premises have a working and effective fire alarm fitted to provide a warning sign of a fire within the building.
- Keep all escape routes clear from obstacles
- Ensure all fire doors are kept shut, do not wedge them open.
- Ensure employees are aware of what to do in the event of a fire.
If you need any help or advice with fire safety on your premises then get in touch with us today. For more blogs about advice surrounding fire safety head over to our blog today.
